FRENCH POLICE QUESTION TVM RIDERS AND OFFICIALS

REIMS, France---A day after the Tour de France ended, police questioned 14
members of the TVM team.

Six cyclists, along with eight team staff members, were questioned Monday
morning in Reims, northeast of Paris. Already the team director, Cees
Priern, its doctor, Andrei Mikhailov, and Joahnnes Moors, a masseur, had
been placed under formal investigation --- a step short of being formally
charged---on doping charges.

The six riders---Jeroen Blijlevens, Steven De Jongh, Servais Knaven, Bart
Voskamp, Sergei Ivanov and Sergei Outschakov---made no comment as they
entered the police station.

Jan Van Het Hoge, the team's cook, said the riders ''are all very at ease
and don't think they will be put under official examination because they
are innocent. I hope..we can go back to the Netherlands quickly."

The investigation of the TVM team began in March, when customs agents found
performance-enhancing drugs in a team car.

Priem and Mikhailov were arrested July 23, and subsequent searches of TVM
hotel rooms resulted in the seizure of more drugs. Team members were taken
to a hospital in Albertville, where they were subjected to extensive
medical checks.

The l7th stage of the race had to be annulled when all the cyclists,
angered at the treatment of TVM members, refused to race.

On Friday, TVM riders pulled out of the race saying they had neither the
physical nor the mental strength to continue. They quit while the Tour was
in Switzerland, meaning the riders would not have to come back through
France.

Marie-George Buffet, the French sports minister, said she was determined to
attack doping among athletes. In an interview published Monday in the.
French daily Le Monde, she said doping was common at the junior level. Of
221 athletes who tested positive for drugs in France in 1997, she said 27
were "at the top level."